Ever the Same
by Josie Brassfield
Summary: For Peyton Sawyer, someday has finally arrived in the form of an untimely epiphany. AU. Takes place after 5x05. JP, BL, possible NH.
1. Prologue

Her heart begins to ache the moment she finds the small black box half-hidden beneath Lucas' fingertips. For some reason, this preemptive sighting isn't the dream come true she had always hoped it would be. It doesn't feel epic or romantic or fateful.

As she gingerly removes the box from his lax grip, it doesn't feel _real_. The box feels clumsy in her slender hands and almost too heavy for her to hold as she stands frozen at Lucas' bedside. Shaken, she wanders slowly toward the stiff green chair in the corner of the hotel room and sits staring blankly at the small black box she wishes she would have never seen.

One of her hands runs lazily along the crease separating the top of the box from the bottom while the other clamps it shut. The harebrained voice inside of her head is almost too curious to silence, but the part that aches is much louder and reminds her that this small black box is far better suited for Pandora's reckless grasp than her own.

When Lucas wakes up, the glint in his eyes is too much for her. This entire situation is too much for her. With wide eyes and a nervous smile she knows looks crooked and counterfeit, she shows him the box and tells him she's been thinking of how much she loves him.

Her words ring truer than any than any she has ever spoken. She does love him. _She loves him so much_. But she can't do this. She can't look at the ring she knows is waiting in the darkness of Pandora's Box. She can't look at the wistful glint in his eyes. She can't say "I do" because _she doesn't_.

It occurs to her as he begins his untimely proposal that she never really has.

So she clasps her hands around his before he can open the box. She clasps her hands around his and doesn't know whether to hold on to him for dear life or to wrench what little part of her he still has away from him.

Panicking, she gets to her feet and paces to the other side of the room. Her voice is pitchy with excuses, and she knows he isn't buying a single one of them. She can hardly believe herself when she collapses beside him on the foot of the bed and pleadingly tells him that she _does _want to marry him someday.

_Someday._

One word, and she's in Savannah again. She's sitting with Jake on his front porch, asking him to marry her because there is no possible way for her to survive without him. There is no life for her without Jake and Jenny, and she is desperate for an escape from the Sunday evening feeling that is creeping in and closing in around the warm summer evening and the smell of Jake's skin and the sound of Jenny's laughter.

_Someday _is not meant for her and Lucas. For the first time, she is sure of this, but for the thousandth, she is too frightened to say it aloud, so she doesn't. Instead, she lowers herself and Lucas to the mattress below and lays her head on his chest as she trills on about their dreams and their future (a future she knows will never come).

---------

The next morning, Peyton awakened to the cool, empty silence of a hotel room. Lucas had gone, leaving only her mix CD in his place. Her heart began to thud in a broken, wounded rhythm as she took the abandoned CD into her hands and climbed slowly off of the bed. She walked slowly toward the stiff green chair in which she had left her purse, and rifled through it for a moment before pulling out her cell phone and flipping it open.

She scrolled through her contacts as her eyes began to water and nose began to go pink with held back tears. After a few seconds, she arrived on the name she had been looking for (a name she had probably been looking for for longer than she knew).

She took a deep breath before pressing the talk button and bringing the phone to her ear. The phone rang rang six times, at a maddening pace, before someone finally answered.

"Jake?"


	2. Fixing A Hole

"At your service," Jake happily replied.

A heavy breath of air began to cling to Peyton's suddenly sticky throat at the sound of his voice. She realized as her phone began to slip from her sweaty grasp that she couldn't remember the last time she'd heard it. It sounded good; _he _sounded good. She opened her mouth to say something (to say anything, really), but she found herself inconveniently (and hopefully only temporarily) incapable of intelligent speech.

"Hello?" Jake asked.

Peyton's eyes widened as her mouth continued to open and close in silence. She hadn't spoken to him in God only knew how long. He could be over her. He could be perfectly happy without her.

He could have moved on.

"Hello?" he repeated.

"Hi," she finally blurted out.

Speaking seemed to calm her nerves for a moment, at least until she was met with the ensuing silence on Jake's end of the call. The thoughtful side of her brain urged her to remain quiet. The same questions that had rendered her silent were probably running marathons in Jake's head. However, the harebrained bundle of nerves she usually went to painstaking efforts to quell could no longer be silenced.

"Jake? Hi," she repeated in as bright a voice as she could muster. "It's Peyton."

"Peyton?" he repeated, sounding at once skeptical and nervous.

"Uh, yeah. Peyton Sawyer from Tree Hill. Don't tell me you've forgotten me," she said in an attempt at playfulness.

"No, of course not," Jake answered, laughing nervously. "I just wasn't expecting…" he paused, "this." He was quiet again for a few seconds before reentering the conversation with a detached yet candid, "How have you been?"

Her old smile stretched like an elastic band across the swollenness of her mouth, "Good," she answered, "Really good. I'm living in L.A. now."

"Yeah, I heard. Changing the world yet, Peyton Sawyer?" he quipped.

His words made her heart swell in an odd combination of pain and joy. In the same moment they made her feel at home, they reminded her of her every failure. They reminded her of being the assistant to the assistant, the mail room, the coffee runs.

She faked a smile for her own benefit. "Oh, I don't know about that…" she answered before attempting to change the topic with mention of Jenny. "So, how's that little girl of yours, Jagileski?"

"Jenny is great. She's talking up a storm these days, too. The other day, she…" he stopped and laughed at himself. "I'm sorry. I sound like such a typical parent."

Peyton grinned, "You're not a typical parent, Jake Jagileski. You're an _amazing _parent."

She swore she could almost hear him smiling through the phone before he cleared his throat suddenly. She knew he was gearing toward a new subject. "Anyway," he continued, "How are things with Lucas?"

Peyton's elastic grin was suddenly being flung out of a fifth-floor window; luckily, it was bound to bounce back. Unluckily, however, there was no escaping his question. Did she tell him they were still together? She didn't want to lie or force him into a long, drawn out conversation of all things Lucas. But she also didn't want him to know she had called him on the coattails of their breakup.

She cleared her own throat. "Actually," she answered, shifting the phone to her other ear, "we broke up."

Her attempt at nonchalance was miserable at best.

"You broke up?" he repeated.

She hoped that the sound in his voice was relief rather than cautious skepticism.

"I'm sorry to hear that."

Suddenly, she could breathe again.

"Yeah," she breathed, "Me too."

And she was sorry. Suddenly, it occurred to her that it was stupid of her to be calling him. Her untimely epiphany shouldn't have to put anyone else's life into temporary disrepair. No, she needed to hang up. She needed to get off of the phone and be alone and learn how to be by herself. She had loved Lucas, perhaps it hadn't been enough, but she _had_ loved him, and now she needed time to get over their break up, even if she had been the one to initiate it.

"Anyway," Jake interrupted her thoughts, "What made you call?"

_Crap. _

"Um…"

_Just hang up. Tell him your phone cut out. The battery died. The reception is bad. HANG UP THE DAMN PHONE!!_

Unable to reconcile the polar opposite personalities that seemed to waging a civil war in the back of her mind, Peyton blurted out the first excuse to pop into her head, "Actually, I'm planning a trip to Savannah," she trilled in a high pitched, guilty tone of voice.

"Wow," Jake answered, laughing lowly beneath his words, "That's… that's really random, Peyton."

"I know," she answered lamely, coming to terms with the fact that there was absolutely no way he was going to believe her. She sighed, and tossed her purse to the floor as she sat shakily upon the stiff green chair. "I'm sorry, Jake, it's just—"

She stopped abruptly as she noticed the flimsy fashion magazine which had slipped from her purse. Leaning forward, she swooped it up and eyed the cover for a moment before breaking into a meek smile of relief.

_Brooke Davis, up and coming fashion designer, spills about her upcoming charity fashion show in Savannah next month._

Never in her life had she loved her best friend more.

"It's just that Brooke is having her first big fashion show there, and it would mean a lot to her if I could be there."

"Brooke is having a fashion show in Savannah?" he repeated incredulously.

"Yeah," Peyton grinned. "Her mom has really been hassling her about going into business, and she's trying to prove that she can do it without the Davis checkbook. It's really for charity, so you probably haven't heard much about it," she explained.

"So let me get this straight," Jake said slowly, "_Bitch-_toriais letting Brooke throw a fashion show for charity?"

Peyton, in all honesty, hadn't spoken to Brooke in over four months. All that she knew of her best friend and her impending career in fashion was what she read in magazines. She bit her bottom lip as she yanked nervously on a section of curls with her free hand.

"You know Victoria," Peyton answered, "She's probably just looking into prospective investors."

Jake sounded as if he might say something as to agree with Peyton when he was interrupted by a second voice.

"Daddy say a bad word?"

Peyton's eyes swelled as she pushed the phone tighter against her ear.

"Oh, morning, hunny. Yeah, Daddy say a bad word. Daddy's sorry."

"Daddy say bitch!" Jenny said loudly.

Peyton clutched a hand over her mouth in order to keep herself from laughing. Jake probably didn't find any humor in Jenny's outburst.

"Yes, hunny, Daddy did. Daddy was being naughty, because that—"

"Bitch, bitch, bitch, bitchbitchbitch, biiiiitch," Jenny sang. She sounded as if she was getting further away.

"Is a bad word," Jake finished, sounding warn out. "Hey, Peyton. I better let you go. I need to get Jenny to stop saying that. If Nikki hears her saying it, there will be hell to pay."

"Oh, okay," Peyton answered half smilingly and half disappointedly, "I guess I'll talk to you later. Bye, Jake." She began to remove her cell phone from her ear when Jake spoke up again.

"Oh, and Peyton, before you go—" he seemed hesitant. "I'm really looking forward to seeing you, and… and you know you're always welcome to stay here with Jenny and me." There was a smiley tone about his voice. "You and Brooke both."

"Thanks, Jake," Peyton grinned. "I'll talk to you later, okay? …Okay. Bye, Jake."

After finally hanging up the phone, Peyton glanced to the too-old alarm clock sitting on the bed table and noticed the digital red numbers with an air of terror. She was going to be late for her God-awful job. Gasping, she got to her hands and knees on the floor where she began shoving things back into her purse.

She cast a second glance at the demonic looking relic of an alarm as she got to her feet and rushed for the door, contemplating the best possible way to explain this debacle to Brooke.


	3. Coming To Terms

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: I am so sorry that I haven't updated this. This story means a lot to me, and I lost inspiration for it about the same time that I lost interest in One Tree Hill. I still love Jeyton and Brucas, and I'm really going to try to get some momentum going. This chapter is a bit different than the last two (it switches up the perspective), but I hope that you'll enjoy it! **

* * *

His lips are fire and ice and sunlight and rainfall and she never wants him to stop kissing her. In the time it takes to blink just once, she's reminded of how much she adores him (how much she's always adored him). She's never loved someone the way she loves him, and in spite of the voice of reason that tells her over and over again that he's her first love and not her last, she can't bring herself to believe she'll ever love anyone as much.

His bright eyes, his soft lips, the curve of his nose, and the beat of his heart are all she can see when her foolish mind contemplates eternity. Heaven couldn't possibly exist without those things. Without his eyes or his mouth or his nose or his heart. Without him.

Heaven could not possibly exist without Lucas Scott.

During her moment of excruciating bliss, it suddenly becomes clear to her that hell couldn't possibly exist without him either. How could hell possibly be the punishment it is intended to be without the pain that comes from being this close to Lucas Scott and knowing that it is not your lips he is kissing (not really), but hers?

It is Peyton Sawyer's lips that he feels pressing against his intoxicated mouth. He is free falling into a haze of drunken comfort and he can hardly see past the tip of his nose, never mind the goose bumps on Brooke Davis' skin or the slow-dying rattle of her long-broken heart.

He can't see her.

Her heart crumbles like dried mud and settles to the pit of her stomach in a heap of filth and grime. She feels dirty, suddenly, and recoils as quickly as sheer will allows.

She pushes him gently in the chest before facing away in an attempt to gain some composure. She manages a smile and a characteristic remark, hoping beyond hope that her eyes will not give her away (if he can even see them, that is, through the fog of desperation in his own).

His speech is earnest and slurred and even he can hear how pathetic it sounds, but he can't seem to find it within himself to care. Because it's the truth. After years of devoting himself to Peyton Sawyer, he no longer has a purpose without her. _He doesn't know what to do. _

Brooke offers him the same words of encouragement she's given herself on countless occasions, and, as she places Peyton's engagement ring in the palm of his hand, repeats the words that he once wrote about her.

_Lucas Scott is gonna change the world someday, and he doesn't even know it yet._

This, he seems to hear, seems to recognize from somewhere deep beneath his drunken stupor, and almost seems to acknowledge. Brooke draws in a shallow breath of air as she rests her cool hands on either side of his face and places a chaste kiss on his temple.

He won't see her for a while.

She turns away from him, then, and makes her way toward the door.

He doesn't see the tears forming in her eyes as she leaves.

* * *

Brooke returned home feeling every bit as breathless as an untrained marathon-runner. She had spent the duration of the long cab ride home suffocating her tears into submission and hoping beyond hope that they might subside until she got past the front door. Unfortunately, the sanctuary on the other side of her front door had been deemed un-cry-worthy as well. The unadulterated misery she had been feeling for a little over an hour doubled at the sight of her mother, Victoria.

"I've been calling you all night," Victoria snapped as she marched toward her daughter. "Maybe teen marriage is all the rage in Hicksville, North Carolina, but I swear if you marry this boy, I'll have annulment papers drawn up so fast—"

"Mom! Relax. It was just a joke," Brooke interrupted. She sounded tired and resentful, and the worst part was that she was more resentful of herself than Victoria. Hadn't she told herself a thousand times to avoid alone time with Lucas Scott? What had made her stupid enough to believe that New York City could change her mind, never mind her heart? She was as helplessly in love with Lucas as she had been in Tree Hill. Distance didn't change that. Haircuts and fashion shows didn't change that.

"Oh," Victoria sighed in relief. "Thank God. You have far too much to lose, Brooke."

Brooke cringed at the sound of Victoria's voice. She sounded much more like a business consultant than a mother, and she seemed completely unaware of it. In her mother's eyes, Brooke stood to lose a business. A fashion line. An offshore bank account. She had no way of knowing that Brooke had already lost the things that she wanted the most: a boy named Lucas, a family, and a vacation home in the South of France.

"And Lucas Scott was the one boy I might have lost it for," Brooke placated her mother with a small sigh and a hint of sarcasm.

"You should be focusing on the company, not boys with rings," Victoria condescended with an irreverent flick of her wrist.

"But what about love, Mom? Isn't that the key?" Brooke shrugged a single shoulder vulnerably as she gave Victoria a solid, earnest look. A small hope began to unfurl in the pit of her stomach that her mother would see through her bravado and once and for all understand. Understand her loneliness. Understand her heartache. Understand her love for Lucas. She wanted so desperately for Victoria to hold her in her arms and tell her that everything would be alright.

Instead, Victoria remained as stoic as ever as she told her only child, "In case you've forgotten, it's called 'Clothes over Bros.'"

Brooke cocked an eyebrow and half-smiled at her mother's obliviousness. "Right," she answered softly, feeling entirely defeated. "Okay, I'm in. The fashion line. The magazine. I'm ready to take it to the next level."

"I'm so happy to hear you say that!"

It was the first time Brooke could remember Victoria looking genuinely happy about something since she could remember.

"I promise you, darling, we are going to have everything we have ever wanted," Victoria added with her palm pressed gently against Brooke's cheek. Then, just as suddenly as she had placed it there, she removed her hand from her daughter's cheek and began striding quickly away. "Oh, by the way," she said over her shoulder as she left, "call me Victoria. That whole 'mom' thing just makes me sound too old."

Brooke's lips fell agape as her mother left the room. She lifted her hand to set the pads of her fingers flat against her brow as she walked slowly toward her bedroom. Walking inside, she closed the door softly behind her and rested her forehead against the dark wood. She sighed softly as she pushed away from the door and tossed her handbag to her bed. It wasn't until she was seated at her vanity, mechanically removing remnants of black liner and mascara from her eyes, that she began to cry.

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**I hope that you all enjoyed this! Next chapter will have some Brooke/Peyton interaction! 3**


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